Gnomes are probably one of the friendliest, least judgmental races in Warcraft. They are eager to share their information and knowledge of technology with anyone that will sit down and listen, which is why there’s a gnomish branch of engineering that is available to everyone, Alliance or Horde. While the goblin race remains neutral for financial reasons, the gnomes are simply nice to everyone, regardless. Anyone could be a potential friend or fellow inventor, as far as they are concerned. The gnomes joined the Alliance primarily because their closest friends, the dwarves, did so – but it’s entirely possible that they could have remained a completely neutral party like the goblins if they weren’t already such close buddies with the dwarves of Ironforge. While they have a bit of a grudge against the orcs, left over from their fighting in the second war, they are still forgiving, and willing to give the orcs a second chance. After all, prejudice isn’t really part of the programming of a rational machine.

So now we know where gnomes came from! Sort of. While there is a large amount of information missing from gnomish history, enough has been revealed about the origins of the race to at least speculate on answers to some common questions.

1. If Gnomes are all about the technology, how come they can be mages?

There are several references to the Curse of the Flesh in Warcraft lore dating all the way back to the original, vanilla release of World of Warcraft, indicating this was clearly something the writers over at Blizzard had in the works for quite some time. Although it is not mentioned by name, the Curse is first spoken of in the last quest in Uldaman, The Platinum Discs. Interestingly, the NPC that gives players the story of the dwarves origins is called the Lore Keeper of Norgannon, indicating that these Watchers, at least, were placed to archive the world’s history by the titan Norgannon himself. The question that still hasn’t been answered to this date is this: How many of these Watchers are scattered across the world, and how much of Azeroth’s history do they have compilations for? There was an article a couple of weeks ago on wow.com by David Bowers about Warhammer’s “Tome of Knowledge”, an in-game database full of game information like achievements, titles, and quests – but it also includes an extensive database of story, lore and history. I’d like to think that the discs that are used to activate the Watcher’s archives could very well be a method that Blizzard could incorporate an in-game database of lore that is easily accessible by players, but for now it’s wishful thinking. That, and it’d make this blog woefully obsolete. Regardless, let’s continue on with the Gnomes, what little we do know of them, and speculation on what we don’t.

WARNING – THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING: Wrath of the Lich King, and events that take place in the raid zone of Ulduar. If you don’t wish to be spoiled on any of the above material, I would not recommend clicking to read further!

Last week, we focused on the history of the Tauren, the largest of the Horde’s races, and speculated on their possibly titanic origins. This week we’re going to look at the smallest of the Alliance races – the Gnomes – and speculate on their titantic origins, and what those origins mean for the race. Gnomes are the oft-misaligned hated race of the alliance, endless streams of short jokes and threats of gnome punting littering the net. Nobody likes the gnomes, it seems – unless of course you are a gnome player, and if you’re a gnome player, then you’re weird. At the original release of World of Warcraft very little was known about this odd, tiny, frenetic little race of tinkers and mechanics, but the release of Wrath of the Lich King cleared up a lot of the mystery of where the gnomes came from, and why they are here.

Not all of it, but a lot of it. This week, expect small amounts of speculation that are clearly labeled, and a whole lot of Warcraft history. Please be patient with me, as the timeline involving the Titans arrival, the Old Gods arrival, and everything that happened in between is currently in flux – game lore is contradicting existing lore, and it makes everything…iffy.

WARNING – THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING: Wrath of the Lich King, and events that take place in the raid zone of Ulduar. If you don’t wish to be spoiled on any of the above material, I would not recommend clicking to read further!